There’s a Flying V–shaped hole in my heart left by the death of Jay Reatard. Four years after the release of Blood Visions, his 2006 magnum opus, it’s still hard to determine whether any nü-garage act will be able to top its genius mixture of scorched-earth guitars and Stephin Merritt–worthy lyrics. I’m sorry to report that Harlem’s brilliantly titled second album is not that record. Free Drugs, their 2008 self-released debut, was incredibly promising. Its short, grizzly tracks delivered skeletal yet catchy hooks, aligning the band with Black Lips as speedy fraternity brothers-in-arms. Hippies, their first Matador release, recalls the Ponys after the departure of Ian Adams: too slow and a bit too sludgy. “Prairie My Heart” is the one great song — its abrupt switch from dirtball country to cheeky swing makes the heart soar. Whereas Matador labelmates Times New Viking elevate intentionally shitty recording to new, almost baroque heights, Harlem can seem forced, even a bit boring. When listening to Hippies, it’s difficult to forget that Harlem have professed their love for Nirvana, and still more difficult to suppress the urge to tell them to turn down that bass already.

Arty crashers Fucked Up's career is a game of dares they're winning. Over the past few years, the Toronto band have trashed a bathroom on an MTV broadcast, played a 12-hour set in a NYC boutique, reeled in random notables like David Cross, Bob Mould, and Nelly Furtado for Christmas charity singles, landed their vocalist Pink Eyes appearances on Fox News, and won the 2009 Polaris Music Prize.

The New Pornographers | Together Once a group of Canadian unknowns masquerading as a supergroup, the New Pornographers are no longer entirely Canadian or unknown, and neither are they the same cavalier bunch who redefined left-field power pop for the Naughts.

Review: For Colored Girls Can a mid-'70s play consisting of 20 monologues delivered by seven women survive the transition to movie screens in 2010? The short answer: not if it's adapted by Tyler Perry.

Review: If a Tree Falls Director Marshall Curry's If a Tree Falls tells the full tale of the ELF's genesis in Oregon, and of the group's badass campaign of "economic sabotage" that left more than 1200 symbols of bourgeois excess (a Vail ski resort, an SUV dealership) burned to the ground.

Girls | Father, Son, Holy Ghost The reason Father, Son, Holy Ghost is so uniquely, imperfectly swell is because the band plainly give fuck-all about convention or stylistic uniformity.

Ceremony | Zoo Ceremony aren't as intellectual or dryly hilarious as Wire and don't attempt a comparable stylistic variety, but the raucous Zoo is a fine tribute to Wire's heavier side, alternating between powerful, lumbering riffs and manic splatters of guitar noise.

The incredible journey of Marcus Samuelsson If you were at the South End Buttery last week, you might have noticed a tall, sharply dressed African guy with a lilting Swedish accent sipping iced coffee, talking to a reporter, and radiating a crackling energy.

IS BOSTON RIGHT FOR WRITERS? | March 05, 2013 Boston, the birthplace of American literature, boasts three MFA programs, an independent creative-writing center, and more than a dozen colleges offering creative-writing classes.

INTERVIEW: THE PASSION OF MIKE DAISEY | February 14, 2013 Last January, storyteller Mike Daisey achieved a level of celebrity rarely attained among the off-Broadway set when the public radio program This American Life aired portions of his monologue The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs .

GETTING BOOKED: WINTER READS | December 21, 2012 Who cares about the fiscal cliff when we'll have authors talking about Scientology, the space-time continuum, and Joy Division?

BRILLIANT FRIENDS: GREAT READS OF 2012 | December 17, 2012 You already know Chis Ware's Building Stories is the achievement of the decade (thanks, New York Times!), but some other people wrote some pretty great books this year too.